City of Bells (42 page)

What’s Real
?

The Indian Rebellion (sometimes called the Great Mutiny) of 1857 was a real event, as is the tragedy of Cawnpore, although the unfortunate Sloane family is a figment of my imagination, as are all the members of the Byculla Club.  The Club itself was quite real, as is the suicide tree, a marvelous tropical plant which some still consider the perfect murder weapon.  Nonetheless, the crimes described within City of Bells are entirely fictional, as is the Everlee-Weaver family and Miss Hoffman’s school for girls.

I am beholding to Margaret MacMilli
an, author of
Women of the Raj,
for many of the details describing the sometimes terrifying, sometimes tedious lives of British women living in India in the middle of the nineteenth century.  If this story has intrigued you, I urge you to pick up her excellent nonfiction book for further research.  Thanks also to Shirley Butterworth and Second Star Publishing for their help with editing and cover design.

Three of the names used in the novel are the names of real people.  Leigh Ann Hoffman won the right to be a villain in a charity auction,
and Pulkit Sang is a friend who dances at the same ballroom studio as I do.  Henry Seal is the name of an old boyfriend who was (and is) a wonderful man and nothing like the self-satisfied character in the book.  Thanks for loaning me your names, guys!

What’s next?

Next up is a bargain-priced novella for the Christmas season.
The Angel of Hever Castle
takes Trevor and Rayley to the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, which has fallen into neglect and become an artist colony.  There they will encounter a runaway heiress, an unscrupulous seducer, a portrait which changes faces, and perhaps even the ghost of the beheaded queen.

The next novel in the series,
City of Stone,
will be released in late spring, 2014.

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release of upcoming volumes in the City of Mystery series, either follow the City of Mystery page on Facebook or send your email address to
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.
  And reviews on Amazon or Goodreads are always appreciated!